The What, Why and How of Serverless Computing

As of 2018, nearly half of IT decision-makers reported that their companies are using serverless computing, which is the fastest-growing type of cloud service at the moment. Serverless computing is an application deployment strategy that eliminates the need for developers and admins to think about the servers that host application code. Instead of having to set up servers, install an application on them and maintain the host server on an ongoing basis, serverless computing makes it possible to execute an application on-demand. Serverless computing can probably help to optimize some of an organization’s workload – but will also, of course, require an IT team to acquire some new skills, and possibly additional tools. What’s driving the interest in serverless computing? What makes serverless different from other forms of IT infrastructure and application deployment? What are the advantages and disadvantages — in terms of cost, efficiency, scalability, security and more — of serverless?

This report answers those questions. It explains what serverless computing means, compares serverless to other types of technologies, such as virtual machines and containers, and discusses the pros and cons of adopting serverless platforms.